SYMPHONIC INTERLUDE

What do your accountant and your doctor do in their spare time? How do your secretary and your son's elementary school teacher spend their evenings?

What they do may surprise you and illuminate a dimension of their personalities that you never thought about.

If they live around the southwest suburbs, they might be among the 65 or so volunteer musicians who perform in the Southwest Symphony Orchestra. From high school students to housewives, accountants to nuns, the folks of the Southwest Symphony make a concerted effort to bring musical culture to the region.

"It's our 30th season, and we're infused with energy to expand our audience base and our performance schedule," said Tom Hawley of Blue Island, the orchestra's principal bassist and manager. By day an accountant, by night a classical musician, Hawley spoke recently about his six years with the orchestra and its past, present and future.

It was a cool rainy Monday evening as people filtered into the practice room at Mother McAuley High School on Chicago's Far Southwest Side. They toted umbrellas, rain hats, sheet music and often cumbersome musical instruments. A visual survey revealed a group ranging in age from callow adolescence to the bragging side of 80.

That survey also revealed a group devoted to the task at hand. These were people who were happy to be there-this isn't work. They smiled as they spoke or nodded greetings over the cacophony of tuning violins. In addition, there was the cellist who came despite the sling on her arm and the wind player who risked certain injury walking on slippery linoleum with crutches.

"This year's plan was to increase our concert schedule by one a year (from the current three) until we reached six," Hawley said. "We've already jumped ahead of that by adding two concerts next year."

Besides a pops concert in May that was held at the Moraine Valley Community College's new Performing Arts Center, the group has added a 31st anniversary celebration concert in September. This concert will also take place at the Performing Arts Center.

They're calling it a Mayors' Reception and Benefit Concert, and the orchestra has invited the mayors of 22 southwestern communities, according to Hawley.

Normally concerts are performed at Mother McAuley High School, 3737 W. 99th St. in Chicago, where the auditorium can comfortably seat the orchestra's audience of 700 to 800 people, Hawley said. The orchestra, though, hopes to play other venues-like the Moraine Valley location-that are centrally located for a potentially larger audience drawn from far southwest communities.

The Southwest Symphony Orchestra operates under the auspices of a board of directors. There are 14 board members, plus five ex officio board members, one of whom is the conductor. The board is responsible for "the care and nurturing of the orchestra," according to president Alice Maguire of Oak Lawn. In addition to making sure the bills get paid, the board has a music selection committee that chooses the pieces the orchestra will perform.

This is Maguire's third year as board president. Prior to that she was a member of the orchestra's guild, the fund-raising branch of the orchestra family. Maguire explained that the guild holds auctions and bake sales and sells orchestra tote bags, T-shirts and sweatshirts and performance tickets.

The group contributes approximately 7 percent of the orchestra's annual budget of about $50,000. The remainder comes primarily from ticket sales and a few donations.

The orchestra comprises 60 to 65 volunteer musicians, who come from all walks of life. Of those, more than one-fifth have been with the orchestra for 20 years or more. Three are charter members.

In addition to the volunteers, there is a core of about 12 musicians, paid members of the musicians union, who act as the principals (lead musicians) of the various sections. Professionals also are called upon to play instruments required for a particular piece of music and for which the orchestra has no volunteer. The conductor, David Crane of Evanston, is also paid.

Hawley explained there is also a 40-member training orchestra. Participants pay $35 per semester, and they perform two concerts a year. Its musicians, Hawley said, range in age from 9 to 60 and older. Musicians often sit in if they are learning a second instrument, he said.

Musicians in the training orchestra, as well as others, are encouraged to audition for the orchestra, which requires a higher skill level, Hawley said.

The orchestra ranks among the smaller of the area's community orchestras in both size and budget, according to Hawley. "But we are the only one I know of that operates in the black," he said.

Concertmaster and founding father Dan Seyman, an Oak Lawn businessman, agreed. "As long as I can remember, we've closed out every season in the black. That's something to be proud of," he said.

It is, in fact, what Hawley credits with winning the generosity of the Illinois Arts Council when that group hands out its annual grants.

So far the orchestra has received a grant each year it has applied, albeit a small one. That's no small feat, according to Hawley, in these days of tightening state budgets.

"Every year the (Illinois Arts Council) committee asks me how we fund our orchestra. Every year I tell them the bulk of our money comes from our concert ticket sales. I think that impresses them," Hawley said, his voice lowering as he confessed he didn't wish to tempt fate by boasting.

Boasting about the orchestra is something that comes naturally to Seyman, who recalls when friend and professional musician Al Aulwurm of Oak Lawn approached him about starting a community orchestra in 1963.

"It started with just the two of us, and we did a lot of banging on doors and telephone calling and put a lot of notices in the newspapers," Seyman said.

Aulwurm, a professional violinist who has played with the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, became the orchestra's first conductor, back when early rehearsals were held at Richards High School in Oak Lawn. Their first concert was in the fall of 1964 in the auditorium at Evergreen Park High School. They had more than 60 musicians.

Aulwurm, who retired as conductor of the orchestra just two years ago, recalled, "It wasn't easy to get it started. We had to make a lot of contacts to get businesses to contribute to the orchestra.

"And violinists! There always has been and always seems to be a shortage of good string players," Aulwurm lamented. While acknowledging that every cultural arts group has recurring financial woes, Seyman remarked that southwest communities always have been exceptionally supportive of the SSO.

"You have to be a diplomat," said Aulwurm of his time as conductor. Leading a community orchestra requires skill in relationships with the business community and in relationships with the musicians.

Today the board carries more responsibility for dealing with the business community, but musicians always need nurturing, Aulwurm said.

Conductor Crane concurs. "You have to realize the musicians are involved in the orchestra because they love to play and they love the music," he said.

"I enjoy working with community orchestras," said Crane, who counts among his credits directorship of the Chain of Lakes Orchestra in northwest suburban Fox Lake, plus conductor and administrator of the Northwestern University Summer Orchestra.

"They come to this for the love of it, and they have great spirit to rise above their abilities if coaxed. It's a joy to see their joy when they perform better than they thought they could," Crane said.

Dolores Hogan, violinist, has been with the SSO for about 15 years, she said. "It's a wonderful outlet to exercise my playing skills without the pressure of a professional orchestra. I've also made some great friends," said the Worth music teacher.

Crane came to the orchestra with great expectations. "I'd heard them, and I heard a lot of promise," he said. "Now that we're performing more concerts, that promise is coming through. There is evidence they're practicing more at home."

Indeed, everyone from Crane to charter member and violinist Ann Killalea of Midlothian allows there are no binding contracts forcing people to practice or even to show up. Hawley noted it's basically an honor system whether musicians show up or not.

It is usually not a problem, Crane said, "since for most of the musicians their pride is at stake." That certainly seems true for Killalea. Although this bookkeeper has been playing her instrument for more than 40 years, she says she still practices two hours a day.

"It's one thrill after another to perform in the concerts," Killalea said. Seyman, too, swears the thrill is the same today as it was 30 years ago.

"I'll keep playing as long as I can. Music keeps me young," said the 66-year-old Seyman, sounding as if he's ready for another 30 years.d